Hi.

A quick request: can anyone who a) still has P3D v4 running, and b) has a copy of Makerwys 4.871 and c) has UK2000's EGLC installed send me their t5.csv (and t5.bin) after running Makerwys?

I'm having the known problem with Pro-ATC/X where it fails to announce taxiways because of an incompatibility with the taxiway data output by Makerwys 5.x, and the current workaround is to run an older version of Makerwys against a v4 installation with the same scenery and overwrite the t5.csv and .bin files before importing the AIRAC. However, as I no longer have v4 installed and I actually can't re-install it (I use a monthly developer license and have stopped my 4.x subscription), I can't easily do this. If someone could send me their t5.csv generated for P3Dv4 which includes UK2000 EGLC (one of the known problem airports) then I can use my t5.csv and analyse the two outputs for EGLC side by side and figure out what's actually different, and hopefully find an easier way to fix this going forward.

Thanks!

Edited February 28, 20215 yr by neilhewitt

Unfortunately I don't have EGLC.

Is it an issue with MakeRwys v5, or with P3Dv5?  I use MakeRwys 4.91, which works with both P3Dv4 and v5.

It's specifically a problem due to a change made to MakeRwys 4.9.x. There's a thread on it in Pete Dowson's support forum. It's not a problem with MakeRwys itself, it's the way Pro-ATC/X reads the generated data that's the issue, in that it doesn't properly process taxi waypoints of a specific type (UK2000 being one of the developers who used that specific type, hence EGLC being affected). MakeRwys used to incorrectly class these as a different type and Pro-ATC/X reads those normally, but when MakeRwys was fixed to generate the correct data type, Pro-ATC/X stopped recognising them and since it's getting no updates, it's never been fixed.

MakeRwys < 4.9.x doesn't work with P3Dv5 (no idea why) and MakeRwys > 4.8.x generates data that Pro-ATC/X can't read properly, so the answer is to use MakeRwys 4.8.x against a P3Dv4 installation, which generates the actually-incorrect data that Pro-ATC/X can read.

I tried a manual edit of my MakeRwys 5-generated CSV to fix the data types, but this didn't work properly and I don't know why. I need to be able to compare the two data sets (MakeRwys 4.x and MakeRwys 5.x) side by side to understand exactly what's changed between versions. Then I can build a tool to fix up the CSV and BIN files from MakeRwys 5 so they will read correctly in Pro-ATC/X.

Wow... that's a lot of me typing 'MakeRwys' 🙂

(Slightly ironically, given I moaned about Pro-ATC/X never getting updates in another post today, I went to their support forum and found out a point release has been sent out to their beta group. No idea if it's P3D or MSFS or what it fixes if it is P3D, nor any idea of a release timescale, but maybe there's some hope yet!)

Edited March 1, 20215 yr by neilhewitt

You might try opening up the AFCAD file for your EGLC add-on with ADE, and then select "Lists" and "taxi links".  In particular, sort by and look at the pavement types--I've got a few P3Dv5 sceneries that won't compile for P3Dv4 because the pavement type of some of the taxiways is something P3Dv4 doesn't recognize...odd values like "122" instead of Concrete, Asphalt, Grass etc.

If that's what's happening, you could change those to a known surface type and recompile/replace the airport file (aka AFCAD/ADE) and then run MakeRwys and see if ProATC/X likes that better.

Do you know of any other sceneries with this problem?

Most UK2000 sceneries have it. It's specifically about NO_DISPLAY taxiway points. In theory changing those points to a different type should work, but it doesn't. So I'm looking to do a diagnostic process and diffing the two outputs is key to that.

I guess I'll have to take out a 1 month sub for P3Dv4, re-install it and generate the data myself.

Edited March 1, 20215 yr by neilhewitt

Just to update (and close this topic), I've set up P3Dv4 and generated the data and I can see that it's a lot more than just taxiway type data that's the problem. I think MakeRwys 5.11 does not like the UK2000 EGLC scenery for several reasons. I will cut and paste the data from the data set generated in P3Dv4 and paste it over the new data just for EGLC, and see if that works. 

Edited March 1, 20215 yr by neilhewitt

18 hours ago, neilhewitt said:

Just to update (and close this topic), I've set up P3Dv4 and generated the data and I can see that it's a lot more than just taxiway type data that's the problem. I think MakeRwys 5.11 does not like the UK2000 EGLC scenery for several reasons.

I have two points to make on this thread but I'm not supporting my programs here.

1. MakeRwys 5.11 works fine in all versions of FSX and P3D. There's no change in any recent versions which stop it running. If you've encountered some problem then please report it with proper detail in the FSUIPC support forum.  The main changes recently were all to ADD support for MSFS.

2. I use all of the main UK2000 sceneries on my system and have no problems with the data for any of them, including EGLC. So, again, if you have some specific problems please properly report them, in the right place.

I have just compared the EGLC entries in T5.csv created by MR 4.891 in P3D4 and that created by MR 5.11 in P3D5 and they are identical, and are correctly drawn by Pilot2ATC, for example.

BTW if ProATC/X has a problem with the properly classified "No draw hold points" (used by scenery designers so that they can draw the holds in the correct place but allow AI to get nearer the runway so they are recognised as ready to start the takeoff phases), then as ProATC/X will presumably never be fixed (I changed to Pilot2ATC) someone could have conceivably asked for an option to re-classify them incorrectly in the T5 files.

It is always better to discuss these things in the appropriate forum.

Pete

 

Edited March 2, 20215 yr by Pete Dowson

Hi Pete.

I didn't ask this in your support forum because I'd read all the previous replies there on this issue and I wanted to do some diagnostic work myself before bringing it up again. I didn't want to raise spurious issues unless I felt like I had actual evidence of a problem beyond what had already been discussed and answered by you. This thread was just me asking if someone could send me a t5.csv generated against P3Dv4 so I could do a diff and understand the differences in the data. I'm a developer by trade in real life (not FS, though I do dabble).

I'm setting up clean copies of P3Dv4 and v5 with just stock scenery + UK2000 EGLC and I'll generate the taxiway data for each using MakeRwys 5.1.1 and also 4.8.4 for P3Dv4 and see what comes out. If I have a question to ask / support request based on that, I will of course put it in the appropriate forum.

Thanks!

Edited March 2, 20215 yr by neilhewitt

34 minutes ago, neilhewitt said:

I didn't ask this in your support forum because I'd read all the previous replies there on this issue and I wanted to do some diagnostic work myself before bringing it up again. I didn't want to raise spurious issues unless I felt like I had actual evidence of a problem beyond what had already been discussed and answered by you.

Okay, fair enough. I'll see you over there some time soon then! 😉

Pete